The Queen Of Bedlam Part 51

She lowered her ringless hands and obeyed.

"Do you see that young man over there?" Trevor motioned toward Matthew.

"Yes." Mrs. Swanscott leaned closer to her son and whispered, "Speaking of accidents."

"His name is Matthew Corbett. He's a friend of mine, Mother. Now, as I said I'm going to be very busy here for a while. Very much...tied up. I won't be able to see you as often as I'd like. I may not be here again." He caught the ripple of dismay on her face. "I mean, for...who knows how long?"

"You're a very busy and successful lawyer," she said. "Every penny worth it."

"Matthew is going to come and see you, from time to time. He'll sit with you and listen if you want to talk, or talk if you'd like to listen, or read to you if you'd like that." He gave her hands a squeeze. "I want you to know," he went on, "that when Matthew is sitting beside you, I also am there. When he is reading to you, so I am, and when you speak to him I hear. Can you understand that?"

"I think you're a little brain-addled after that long trip." She pulled a hand free and gently touched his cheek. "But if it makes you happy, and you're so busy, then yes. Your father and I certainly won't mind if a friend of yours comes to the house from time to time. Will he want to stay for dinner?"

Matthew heard, and replied, "Yes, madam. I would."

"He's not a freeloader, is he?" This question was directed to Trevor in a whisper.

"No, he's quite respectable."

"Good. Well, he would be, wouldn't he? If he's a friend of yours?" She stroked his cheek, as Matthew thought perhaps she had when he was a small, smart, and industrious boy and she saw all the possibilities ahead. "It is late, isn't it?" she asked.

"Late, Mother?"

"Late for me. I'm such an old dotty. But you...you have everything wonderful ahead of you. Your life, and Margaret. And children of your own, don't forget that. What you might become, Trevor. The man you shall grow to be. You know, your father's still a boy in so many ways. I think he shall never fully grow up. How can it be, that you and he are so alike?"

"I don't know," came the answer. "I only know I loved...I love Father, and I love you. And I shall always love the both of you, and hold you the highest in my heart."

"Oh!" She playfully cuffed his chin. "That's what all sons say, until they have sons of their own."

Trevor lowered his head for a moment. Matthew knew then why he could get away with hiding behind the mask of Andrew Kippering who hid behind the Masker, because when Trevor looked up at his mother again he was smiling as if he had no care under G.o.d's heaven. He kissed her cheek, and she said, "I think I'd better go to bed. I'm so tired from all this."

All this was not explained, but Trevor helped her into bed as the two doctors watched. When Trevor got her situated and the covers pulled up, she smiled at him and held his hand. "Promise me," she said.

"Promise you what?"

"Promise me...you'll go to the kitchen and ask Priscilla to make you some chicken soup before you leave."

"Oh, I can't leave without a bowl of Priscilla's chicken soup, can I?"

"Perish the thought," said Mrs. Swanscott, in a voice that was beginning to drift. "When I wake up," she said, "everything...will be so much brighter. Don't you think?"

"Yes, Mother. Much brighter."

"One can only hope," Matthew heard her say, in nearly a whisper. Then she sighed, let go of Trevor's hand, and just that quickly she was gone.

Ramsendell and Hulzen came to the bedside, but only to check her breathing and make sure her chamberpot was within easy reach. Ramsendell rubbed the back of his neck. "A long way to go, but at least now we know in which direction."

Trevor was on his feet. "Will she ever recover? I mean...back to how she was?"

"Debatable. I really don't know. We shall have to begin slowly, of course. First of all, to let her understand where she is and who we are. Then we'll approach the loss of Mr. Swanscott, but only when we're sure she can accept it. That may be a long and difficult task for all of us. But I think it's a very good idea for Mr. Corbett to return and spend time with her. That's something I'm sure she'll look forward to and see as a...well...as a visit from you, since you put it so eloquently."

Trevor nodded. He had turned his face away from the bed, and regarded the doorway with grim resignation. At last he said, "All right. I'm ready." Before he left he kissed his sleeping mother on the forehead, and then he preceded Matthew from the room.

Outside, the wagon was waiting. Wearing a riding suit the color of cream with a bright red vest and a cream-hued tricorn accented by a red feather, Gardner Lillehorne was standing next to his horse at the hitching-post. Matthew's horse Dante was also tied at the post. Up on the wagon, the driver and a constable named Uriah Blount were ready to receive the prisoner. Lillehorne had the manacles and chains in hand. They jangled with heavy finality as Lillehorne walked to meet Trevor Kirby.

"May I ask that Mr. Kirby not be manacled?" Matthew asked when Trevor thrust his wrists out.

The small black eyes flashed. "And why not, sir? Because your heart is bleeding?"

"No, because I think it's unnecessary. Mr. Kirby has vowed to cause no trouble. We should take him at his word."

"Oh, is that why he was manacled on the trip here, sir? Because we took him at his word?"

"Do me the favor," Matthew said flatly.

Lillehorne grunted and started to close the ponderous cuffs around Trevor's wrists, but then he scowled and stepped back with them still undone. "I have already done you the favor, as you put it, by allowing this highly unofficial visit to be made. The prisoner will get in the wagon. Mr. Blount, give him aid, please. And keep your pistol ready at all times."

"Yes sir."

"Thank you, Matthew," Trevor said before he climbed up to be guarded all the way back to New York. "Thank you also for agreeing to come see her. Let me ask this: do you think she'll be safe?"

"I think so. There would be no profit in harming her, and no lesson to be made out of her for the underlings. So yes, I do think she'll be safe."

"Let's go, gentlemen." Lillehorne mounted his horse. "Or shall we all shuffle to the nearest tavern and weep in our beers?"

On the ride, as they followed the Philadelphia Pike, Matthew urged Dante up next to Lillehorne's horse. They were proceeding at a walk. "I do appreciate the favors," he said. "Both of them."

"Spare me."

"I just wanted you to know that it meant a great deal to Trevor to see his-"

"What is this Trevor business? Are you his best friend? Don't you recollect that he killed three men, mangled the legs of a third, and might have killed a fourth?"

"I recollect that he turned himself in to you and saved my life. Best friend, perhaps not, but friend yes."

"You were knocked about up at that d.a.m.ned estate one too many times," Lillehorne said sourly.

Matthew held his tongue. Gardner Lillehorne had returned to his usual form. Of course it was understandable, since Lillehorne was in one muddy mire of a mess. The gaol was full, the cold room had been turned into a makeshift gaol, and the judicial fabric of New York was straining under the pull of so many criminals they could hardly be housed, much less fed. The entire scene was a merry disaster, with boys throwing slop buckets and p.i.s.sing at whoever came near the bars. Two prisoners who seemed determined to p.i.s.s and holler their way out of the cells were Bromfield and Carver, who'd been caught on their way to pick up Dippen Nack. The two hunters had run smack into Lillehorne, Kirby, and the constables, and Kirby had recognized Bromfield as the man who'd been with Pollard. A chase had ensued, with Bromfield's horse throwing him into a briar patch and Carver being stopped by a pistol ball past his ear.

Add to the festivities the complications-and mysteries-of the files and papers that had been found in Chapel's office, and little wonder Lillehorne's temper had become a tinderbox. The prosecutors of Charles Town, Philadelphia, and Boston as well as a dozen other smaller localities had to be notified due to the staggering number of forged deeds and bills of sale, plans for arson, extortion, kidnapping, doc.u.ment theft, and even the counterfeiting of money that had either been already hatched or in their initial stages, using the services of those boys-and young men-who had previously pa.s.sed through the criminal university and been placed in those towns waiting for a signal to act. It was a law officer's delirium, to have to deal with thirty or more acts of crime in the planning stages all up and down the Atlantic coast while holding on to twenty-five sharkers some in need of medical attention. And some, like Chapel and Pollard, bound up in beds at the King Street hospital. So Matthew could pardon Lillehorne's foul disposition, as the situation truly was dire.

But, as Matthew considered, it was just his job to catch the criminals. It was Lillehorne's job to hold on to them.

"Gardner," Matthew said as their horses walked side-by-side, "I have an idea about that central constable's station I was talking about. You remember, at the meeting with Lord Cornbury? If this constable's station was built, it could be combined with a new gaol. A modern facility, with...say...twenty cells. With a kitchen also, so meals could be made on the premises. You know, there might be a small medical facility there as well, so wounded prisoners would not be taken away to-"

"Silence!" the man snapped. "What did you call me?"

"Pardon?"

"I said...what did you call me?"

Matthew thought back. "Gardner. Your name."

"No, sir. You are not allowed to call me by anything but High Constable Lillehorne or Mister Lillehorne. Certainly not...what you called me. How dare you! And you think because of...you know...what happened at that estate and my brief stumble that you can rise to my level?" Lillehorne's immaculate black goatee actually twitched. "I am a public official, Corbett! You are a private citizen, not much more elevated than a clerk, if you really want to know my opinion, no matter how highly you think of yourself and this agency that will in the future be shown as a foolish and ridiculous endeavor! This is my town, Corbett! Do you hear me? It certainly doesn't belong to you or that lout Greathouse, and if you think you can weaken my authority and throw mud in my face in front of Lord Cornbury, then I'll vow before my honor that you'll have a fight on your hands! Do you hear? A fight! And if you think Gardner Lillehorne has ever backed away from a fight, ever in his life, well then I'm here to look you right in the eye and tell you..."

Matthew let the high constable continue this loquacious rant, as if there were anything he might do to plug it up. He was sure Lillehorne would still be talking when he decided to listen again about five minutes from now. He was instead transfixed by the way the red feather jiggled and shook on Lillehorne's tricorn as the man raged on, and he wondered where were the hawks when you needed them.

Fifty.

The sun rose and the sun set. The moon moved across the nights, changing shape as it progressed. Tides swelled high, then fell low. The summer ended, and September had arrived.

Matthew checked his watch. It was just after nine o'clock. He would have to be getting home soon, as tomorrow morning he had a case to scribe in the record book and then in the afternoon he had two hours of sword practice with Hudson Greathouse. Not something he looked forward to, but he had learned the valuable lesson of heeding the voice of experience.

"Your move."

"Yes, I'm aware of that." Matthew reached out and took a drink from his cup of cider, making Effrem Owles wait that much longer. The chessboard on the table between them was an example of the decimation that could be wrought when two equal opponents decided to cast aggression to the wind. Matthew, playing white, had two knights, two rooks, and six p.a.w.ns left on this pinewood battleground to defend his king and win the war, while Effrem's black a.r.s.enal held a bishop, a knight, two rooks, and six p.a.w.ns. Effrem's king sat at d7 and Matthew's hugged the corner at h1. Matthew drank slowly, for he didn't like the way this game was turning out.

"The move is apparent," Effrem said.

"All right, then." Matthew wasn't so sure. Effrem's rook at h8 was going to take his p.a.w.n at h3, no matter what he did. The exposure was just too much. Well, something had to be done. He slid a rook from a1 to e1 and was rewarded by Effrem's rook crashing down upon his hapless p.a.w.n. Now he had five.

They sat in the lamplight of the Trot Then Gallop. Matthew had joined his friend for dinner at Effrem's invitation, had enjoyed a meal of baked fish, fried potatoes, and green beans, plus a couple of cups of the very tart and delicious cider. Nowadays he drank sparingly of the tavern liquors, particularly wine from newly tapped casks, but he had come to the conclusion that one could not truly live with the idea in mind that the next sip of anything might bring death by belladonna. Still, it was a hard idea to shake.

He moved another rook and Effrem without hesitation took a white knight with one of his own rooks at h2.

Gak! Matthew thought. Perhaps he'd overstayed his visit here tonight. He and Effrem had played two previous games. Matthew had won the first with a feint up the middle and an attack on the right, the second game had been a stalemate, and now this one was looking grim. Effrem was definitely getting better. Then again, Matthew was getting better at handling the rapier. It would be a kick in the breeches, he thought, if as he became more accomplished at swordplay he became a dunce at chessplay.

But not tonight, friend Effrem! Matthew captured the offending rook with his king and sought a way out of the trap that was being developed involving the black knight and the remaining rook. Not tonight!

There did happen to be some things on his mind that chewed at his concentration.

His health was good, that was on the plus side. All the plasters had come off except the one beside his left eye and the one under his shirt at his left shoulder. He still smelled of comfrey-and-garlic liniment, but by now everyone understood.

What gnawed at him, among other things, were the murders of Simon Chapel and Joplin Pollard.

It had happened in the King Street hospital two weeks ago. Chapel had been put in a bed there to recover from the condition of having his face very nastily rearranged. Infection had set in, and fever, and beneath his bandages Chapel had remained silent to any and all questions posed to him by High Constable Lillehorne. Likewise silent was Joplin Pollard, whose shattered knees had caused him to bite on a stick whenever Dr. Vanderbrocken or Dr. Edmonds merely touched them. If he'd lived he would have likely been wheeled in a pushcart to the hangman's rope.

As Pollard and Chapel were the only other patients on that particular ward-the so-called "prisoners' ward," which was locked up tight behind two doors-and both of them depended on rather stupefying drugs to even allow them a twilight sleep, their departure must have been a relatively quiet affair. But no less sinister for its degree of quiet. They were found dead by the first of the hospital's attendants to arrive, a young man born in New York and known for his scrupulous care of the patients. It appeared in the reports made by Ashton McCaggers that death had been administered sometime between two and three in the morning, and had come about due to a long thin blade driven through the right eye of each man, and hence into the brain. Whoever had picked the locks had left only faint scratches as a signature.

Matthew was particularly bothered about this. Not simply because Chapel and Pollard had escaped the noose and taken their knowledge of Professor Fell with them to the demonic world, but that Mr. Ripley had not been among the boys captured on the day of reckoning.

A black knight moved, getting into position for attack.

"That's far too easy," Matthew said, as he moved his king.

"Yes," Effrem answered. He tapped his chin, his brown eyes magnified large behind his round-lensed spectacles. "I suppose it is."

Other things also whispered to Matthew from the dark. The power of Professor Fell to demand loyalty might as well have caused Lawrence Evans to swallow his tongue, for all the questions he would answer. Evans sat in a cell at the gaol, ever silent. A look of sublime peace had settled upon his face. Did he think he would also be leaving the scene far before a judge read his sentence? If so, he was prepared for the voyage.

Bromfield and Carver were mules. They took orders and knew nothing. Likewise the terrified Dutch-speaking women who cooked the meals and turned out to believe they had been part of a great experiment in the process of education. Charity LeClaire, who occupied a bed in the women's ward on King Street and waxed and waned like the moon, might have wanted to talk to avenge a sticking, but when she began feverishly babbling it was all about being plucked from a London bordello by Lawrence Evans in 1696, cleaned up and dressed up, and under the duress of drugs having to satisfy the wanton and cruel-yes, cruel, I say!-desires of what sounded to be enough young criminals-in-training to fill New York twice over. Details were copious. Matthew had noted that Lillehorne and Bynes had paid close attention to her testimony and the clerk had broken two quills. Unfortunately, though Miss LeClaire obviously had a strong const.i.tution for someone so thoroughly skewered, she was also useless beyond her ability to t.i.tillate.

Effrem's hand moved the second rook. He gave a shrug and sigh as he set it down, as if it didn't matter to the game a whit. Matthew saw where it would be going in two moves, and again shifted his king.

He realized he was caught strictly on the defensive. A bad place to be, according to Greathouse.

Other things. The raid on Chapel's estate had netted two men, one in his forties and the other nearly sixty, who had evidently been employed as instructors. The younger man had confessed an apt.i.tude in both the art of blackmail-"priming the pigeon," he called it-and the usage of various methods of extortion. The older man was a financial expert, whose only crime seemed to be that he could discourse on international monies, exchange rates, and patterns of market behavior in such things as hog bellies and rare jewels until his questioners wished to seal his mouth with a hot poker. Both men confessed to witnessing many killings at the estate and would show Lillehorne the cemetery where the bodies lay, but the story of their employment was a tangled web that could not be followed without travelling to London's underworld...and even then, no sure thing.

The problem, Matthew thought as he stared at the chessboard, was that he'd seen four people whom he'd taken to be instructors. Of the third man and the woman with the blue parasol, there was no trace.

Effrem made a mistake. A simple one, but telling. Matthew leaped a knight upon the black bishop and saw a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

Effrem shook his head. "Oh, I should've moved that rook!"

Misdirection, Matthew thought. He's trying to get me to go after the rook. Well, I won't unless I have to.

And then there was Count Anton Mannerheim Dahlgren.

This was another set of teeth that bit him. When Matthew had left Trevor Kirby in the shade of the tree that afternoon, he'd gone back into the house, through the wrecked dining-room and out onto the terrace where, armed with a rapier, he'd intended to go down the steps, and pull Dahlgren from the garden's goldfish pond.

The curtains had still been in the pond, but Dahlgren was gone.

Four men and Matthew searching the manse, the buildings, and the stable came up with nothing. The evil grenadier might have spread his own leathery wings and flown back to Prussia, so cleanly had he vanished. It was amazing to Matthew-almost incredible-how someone so badly battered could have gotten away so quickly. Again, the word demonic came to mind.

Effrem started to move his rook and hesitated. "You know, I asked you to meet me here for a particular reason, Matthew."

"Right. Dinner and chess."

"Well...not exactly." He moved the rook, which threatened Matthew's knight. "I wanted to know if..." He shifted in his chair. "If..."

"Go ahead and spit it out."

Effrem cleared his throat. "If I were to ask Berry Grigsby to go with me to the Young Lions Ball a week from Friday, do you think she'd go?"

"What?"

"Berry Grigsby," Effrem repeated. "The Young Lions Ball. A week from Friday. Do you think?"

Matthew sat back. "The Young Lions? Since when are you a member?"

"I joined last month. The day after I turned twenty-one. Well, don't look at me like that, Matthew! The Young Lions are a really fine group of fellows! All of them the sons of various craftsmen..."

"I know who they are."